We have just finished the interlude of Shadows of the Nerekhall. This means we have 5 xp for the heroes.

Our beastmaster has already bought the Savagery skill (2 xp)

He now has 3 xp to buy one of his both 3 xp skills, and he's hesitating which one is the best. Opinions within the party are split. What is your opinion?

His current weapon is Mace of Aver, so he'll definitely roll enough surges for changing skins.

which hero does the beastmaster posses?

in case he is low life / brown def die and beeing targeted often by the OL i may would chose to increase his life with predator...but in mostly all other cases i would surely head for changings skins with mace of aver. 3 green die....thats massive dmg in the end that way. i would further head for stalker directly afterwards, because the OL will kill that poor wolf all time then ....stealing actions from the beastmaster, who is required to have his wolf there to exhaust changings skins. After stalker i would head for feral frenzy...because : 1 attack action for free for the wolf with maybe + 2 green die -> meaning that he may also easily trigger +5 dmg. Other skills are not that important anymore anyway, since they often boost your wolfs chance of survival, which is with stalker already very nice done. Furthermore stalker allows you to repositionate your wolf very effectively, which may lead to even more attacks with that devastating combo since the wolf doesnt need to spend too many actions for moving around.

so if its a 4 hero party...where the chances are high, that the beastmaster is not being attacked all time (except its orkell maybe..which wouldnt be the best combo^^) then he should really head for changing skins in my opinion!

I would take Predator. +8 health split between the Beastmaster and his wolf and the additional fatigue recovery are huge.

Don't focus on the Mace of Aver. In Act II, there are better weapons, and the Beastmaster can wield any of them (no need of a melee weapon - actually he should already have a ranged weapon instead of a melee one). Lightning Strike for instance has surge: +2 damage twice. That's only one less damage than what Changing skins gives you.

Also, we lost the Shadows of Nerekhall finale because of total party KO, so even if your Beastmaster is usually not attacked, if he is the last standing, he will become a target. Predator helps avoiding that sad fate. If you have a 14 hp warrior, pump him up to 20 before the finale.

He's pathfinder Durik.

He's not dying often, as he has Aurium Mail from our rumour quest.

He's the only one in our 4 hero party who isn't ranged yet.

The rest is wielding a crossbow, ynfernael rune and magma blast.

We all have decent armour.

I don't see the point to take anything else than Predator.

Giving +4 health to the hero and the wolf is the best way to make them tanks so they won't fall easily before monsters !

I played changing skins once, and it does not worth 3xp

+4 life with Aurium Mail would make him indeed an awesome tank !!...so it may be worth a lot the skill for this combo in cases where its very important that he wont die

but my current experience (at least regarding HoB) is : if you get the possibility to do extreme burst dmg its worth it....all those lieutenants with their black+grey+ maybe another grey def die will fall quite fast against your Hero AND wolf while the wolf doesnt need to be tanky at all if you can make it survive via stalker...or alone for the reason, that the OL cant easily slow down the hero group with Golems blocking necessary hallways in quests where speed is the only relevant factor....so often a Master Golem was in our way....and when he finally fall down he got revived with tristayne olliven deck so he could stand once again in our way slowing us down long enough, that we couldnt fullfill the objectives anymore >__<
And if i think about my upcoming HoB finale -> with that skill alone its possible to kill Eliza without having to end her spell....making the whole finale much more liekly to be won by the heroes without her getting 1 free action after each hero ends his turn.

guess its just personal opinion and empiric data one has gathered during his play sessions...and of course: what are upcoming ojectives -> suriving or being fast / able to pull out big amounts of damage and : what role does your beastmaster mainly posses -> tank / dmg dealer / support etc....cause if i could decide what skills a possible pathfinder durik beastmaster would possess for my current hero group / quest obejctives i would head for burst dmg straight away. ...though i have had quests where the OL had to kill al heroes exactly 1 time -> more life is worth gold here..especially when the OL uses this burst dmg Plot deck of tristayne olliven !

so if you cant decide you maybe should check your possible finales and try to skill for that these, while having your whole hero / class / skill combinations for each hero in mind, when he reaches the finale

(for example -> i have a bard in my group which is able to both stand up on its own and revive all party members in one turn in case a total hero group ko appeared) ..maybe that is where my preferencess for the beastmaster skill comes from at the moment